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I've been looking through different threads trying to find advice on cleaning my horn, usually I take it to my local music store once a year for a thorough cleaning. I try to clean it at home at least four times a year; lately I haven't had the time to take it to get cleaned I was wondering what chemicals would be safe to use to get rid of build up?

dish soap. nothing stronger, for your protection and the tuba's.

John, you might want to read this discussion thread for some good suggestions:

viewtopic.php?p=447072#p447072

Here's my set of tips for cleaning:
Dish soap is the main cleaner I use. It is an excellent degreaser for valves and slides. It may require some soaking time for full effect, but that's well worth it. It also gets any food particles out of the mouthpiece or leadpipe without much effort. A little scrubbing is required to completely remove slide grease.
Regular valve oil by itself is also an effective cleaner. I usually grab the bottle from my wife's trumpet case if I need any since my tuba has rotors.

You may not need anything more than water and a good snake/brush/rag to get most 'build up' out of your instrument. Depending on where the build-up is happening, you may want to consider changing the products (valve oil, slide grease, etc.) you're applying to your moving parts. There are whole threads dedicated to such issues so do some searching if you need to know more.

Also, make sure the water isn't too warm if you're dealing with lacquer. Not such a worry with silver plating.
Too hot, and you'll risk taking the lacquer off of your instrument. Depending on the quality of the lacquer job, that may not be much above 100F. I'm mentioning this from personal experience... The water wasn't any hotter than what I put in my sink to wash pots/pans and it took off some lacquer from a small area.

For serious cleaning I use Dove detergent, 409, a snake, and sometimes some vinegar.

But I strongly advise http://stores.homestead.com/hstrial-RRi ... Detail.bok. Well worth the money. Use it with Dove. It makes the cleaning/flushing process so easy that you can (and will be inclined to) flush your horn more frequently -- which prevents any crud build-up from getting to the point that it needs a heroic effort to eliminate. A review of it on Dave Werden's site is here: http://www.dwerden.com/forum/entry.php/ ... ?goto=prev

Yeah, you can put together something like this (minus the detergent reservoir) from parts at Lowes for around $10 (and I did), but it won't be as easy to use or as effective as the Quick Horn Rinse Sudser. Bob Ricker also stands behind it 100%.